CHEF MIKE'S DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS 

    Chef Mike's incredible weekday lunch specials are an eclectic variety from the entire world of cuisine. 

 They start every Monday with New Orleans best red beans and rice then change daily to include such things as:

 Peanut crusted soft-shell crab with Basamati rice and Tandoori cream, Braised "Whaskily Whabbit" with spaetzle dumplings, Pan seared Redfish with rustic potatoes and New Orleans BBQ shrimp butter.

  In addition, Chef Mike handcrafts a new palette teasing soup daily.  

Mike Baskind, a Chicago native and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who made New Orleans his home 20 years ago. In the 1990s, he worked as the pastry chef at the Windsor Court and followed the hotel's executive chef, Rene Bajeux, when he left to open Rene Bistrot. But four years ago, Baskind said goodbye to all that and took a cooking job pretty far off the culinary career path. He went down River Road to the Rivershack Tavern. Now he works five days a week, pulling the lunch shift only, with such enviable restaurant business perks as holidays and weekends off. The tavern owner gave him free reign over the daily specials and Baskind has run with it, coming up with different dishes one day to the next.